In a groundbreaking discovery, weight loss injections have shown the potential to reverse symptoms of heart disease, offering hope to around 500,000 individuals in the UK.
Semaglutide, also known as Ozempic and Wegovy, was found to be three times more effective than existing treatments for heart failure in a landmark global trial.
Medical professionals have hailed this new class of weight-loss drugs as a game-changer, as it has the potential to transform the lives of patients suffering from this life-threatening condition.
This breakthrough may also lead to a paradigm shift in treatment strategies by offering the possibility of a cure for heart failure, a significant step forward in the medical field.
Furthermore, this evidence strongly suggests that obesity may be the underlying cause of heart failure.
A landmark global trial found semaglutide – known under brand names Ozempic and Wegovy – was three times more effective than any existing treatments for heart failure
Dr. Mikhail Kosiborod, a cardiologist and vice president for research at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, called this development “one of the most promising” in the field. He mentioned that the improvements in symptoms like shortness of breath, fatigue, and physical limitations can substantially impact the quality of life of heart failure patients.
In the UK, approximately one million individuals have heart disease, with half of them suffering from heart failure and preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), a condition characterized by a normally pumping heart that is too stiff to fill properly.
The trial involved 529 patients from 13 countries with a body mass index greater than 30, as well as heart failure symptoms and physical restrictions. Half of them received a once-weekly 2.4 mg dose of semaglutide for a year, while the others received a placebo in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, which is considered the gold standard for medical studies.
After 12 months, the group using semaglutide experienced significant improvements in their conditions and quality of life, including the reversal of symptoms such as shortness of breath and inflammation.
The researchers evaluated changes in body weight and heart failure-related symptoms using the clinical summary score (CSS) of the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ).
After 52 weeks, the mean change in the KCCQ-CSS was 16.6 points for patients receiving the weight loss injections, compared to 8.7 points in the placebo group.
Patients treated with semaglutide, produced by Danish company Novo Nordisk, lost an average of 13.3% of their body weight, compared to 2.6% in the placebo group.
Furthermore, they were able to walk a longer distance in a six-minute test, covering an average of 21.5 meters compared to 1.2 meters in the placebo group.
During a conference, Dr. Kosiborod expressed his excitement regarding these results, highlighting that the benefits observed with semaglutide were the largest seen with any pharmacologic intervention in this specific patient population.
The medication not only improved symptoms, physical function, and exercise capacity, but also reduced inflammation and resulted in greater weight loss and fewer serious adverse events compared to the placebo.
Professor Frank Ruschita, past-president of the Heart Failure Association of the ESC, referred to this discovery as a significant stride forward into a new era. He emphasized the urgency of finding effective treatments for HFpEF as it affects millions of people worldwide and is still poorly understood. Almost two-thirds of patients with this condition are obese.
Wegovy and Ozempic, which both contain semaglutide, work by triggering the body to produce a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 that is released naturally from the intestines after meals
Dr. Sonya Babu-Narayan, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist, commended the study findings. She remarked on the incredible progress made in the development of drugs that aid in significant weight loss, which were once considered a distant dream. She highlighted that semaglutide not only improves the safety profile for heart failure patients but also has a substantial positive impact on their quality of life. The improvements seen in this study, such as increased walking distance, can be truly transformative for individuals living with heart failure.
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